Yesterday, it became public that the Georgia Supreme Court has declined Trump**’s request to quash Fani Willis’s work and case. I’m not totally surprised at the decision, but I am at its speed – that was fast. Impressive. ALso yesterday, Judge Cannon advised the Trump** team that at today’s CIPA hearing, they need to be prepared to discuss trial datees seriously. It wasn’t exactly worded terribly forcibly, but it might be promising.
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Short Takes –
The Daily Beast – Can We Please Make Presidential Elections Shorter and Less Stupid?
Quote – All Congress needs to do is add three dates to our campaign law: one for the earliest launch of campaign exploratory committees, one for the launch of campaigns proper, and one for a universal primary vote and caucus day. The crucial question, of course, is what those dates should be. I’d suggest a pretty aggressive schedule of a month for exploration, a month for primaries, and a month to pick the winner. Working back from the election in early November, we wouldn’t be in election mode until—at the earliest—Aug. 1, 2024. I’m practically salivating at the thought. Click through for full opinion. The length actually bothers me less than the stupidity. Keeping Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates under heavy scrutiny for two years prior to allowing them to take office would give the electorate time to find out what kind of people they really are – provided there was not so much stupidity. But I do realize that as things are now, revealing people’s identity is not likely to happen, let alone to break through voters’ rigid ideologies if it did happen.
Robert Reich – I knew Robert F. Kennedy, and you’re no Robert F. Kennedy
Quote – According to a poll last week by The Economist and YouGov, Kennedy Junior now has higher favorability numbers than either Biden or Trump…. Let me paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen’s remark to Dan Quayle during the vice-presidential debate in 1988: I knew Robert F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is no Robert F. Kennedy. I worked in Robert F. Kennedy’s Senate office in 1967. It was not a glamorous job…. But I did have a chance to get to see Bobby Kennedy close up. Click through for full article (as always click popup to keep going). Its a combination of fact, argument, and memoir which makes me feel how Bobby and Ethel would weep. (Jr.’s sister, who runs the RFK Foundation, has some choice words for him also.)
Yesterday, two legal things happened with Trump**, and both Heather Cox Richardson and Joyce Vance addressed both. The first was Trump**’s motion to postpone the documents case trial indefinitely. This is both very Trump** and very ridiculaous (not that there’s much difference), and Glenn (and other legiti,ate attorneys) will tear it to shreds, though it won’t be in today’s Thread. Secondly – for background, the DOJ defended Trump** in E Jean Carroll’s original defamation case – it did so because he was President when he made the original defamatory remarks, and there might have been just the remotest chance that he was acting as President when he made them. But the new defamatory remarks he made last year – he wasn’t, thank God, President then, so no defense from DOJ. He’ll have to get his own lawyers, Honestly, I don’t know whether having DOJ defense the first time around even helped. I think if I had been on the jury, every time I looked at the defense table, those DOJ lawyers would have reminded me that our nation hadd been so misfortunate as to have this lunatic as President – which would not have inclined me to show him an atom of mercy.
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Short Takes –
PolitiZoom – Why The Democrats Are Already More Strongly Positioned Than The GOP For 2024
Quote – In 2018, 2020, and 2022, non professional Democratic House candidates out fundraised deeply entrenched GOP incumbents by 4-5 to 1. Mostly by talking in living rooms and kitchens, grocery stores and Starbucks, and holding town halls where they actually listened to constituent concerns, and answered not in political bullsh*t, but in real life solutions. Little wonder they rocked like Bob Seger with Hollywood Nights. And the Democrats, not only the upstart contenders, but even the DNC seem to have gotten the memo. Click through for opinion. Let me remind you that Murfster has vision issues (I can’t remember now whether it’s glaucoma, cataracts, both, or something else) and really is not able to prrofread to his own satisfaction, let alone anyone else’s. He’s still intelligent, though, and I hope he’s correct here.
The Daily Beast – GOP Board Whipped Up Homeless Hate. Then a Man Was Murdered
Quote – In January, the Board of Commissioners in Flathead County, Montana, proclaimed that the homeless had become a big problem in the little town of Kalispell due to charitable efforts to shelter and feed them. “Providing homeless infrastructure has the predictable consequence of attracting more homeless individuals,” read a preposterous letter signed by the three members, all Republicans. “When a low-barrier shelter opened in our community, we saw a dramatic increase.” The letter progressed from icy hearted to paranoid. Click through for story. But that’s not how they’d tell it. After all, we are the violent ones coming to get them. Yeah. Right.
Glenn Kirschner – Trump’s danger continues: he posts Obama’s home address; armed Trump supporter heads to the address
The Lincoln Project – Last Week in the Republican Party – July 3, 2023
Robert Reich – Republicans Don’t Own Patriotism
Parody Project – Court for Sale
Sister Cats Take Turns Being Moms To Their Eight Kittens (I’m not sure whether they are blood sisters or “frosted” sisters – Dodo tends to “humanize” relationships)
Beau – Let’s talk about Chris Christie’s campaign….
Yesterday, the first Federal Trump** indictment was unsealed. I posted a “breaking news” update on the Open Thread as soon as i saw it, but in case you missied it, the news was 37 counts. (I presume 7 charges is still correct. It’s 49 pages and I didn’t go through it in full. But “conspiracy” was one, “obstruction of justice” was one, and “willful retention under the Espionage Act” was one. The Espionage Act, combined with the Federal rules for venue, explains why Florida. We now know that for certain.
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Short Takes –
NPR “Shots” – For many, a ‘natural death’ may be preferable to enduring CPR
Quote – So why the controversy? It comes down to a widespread misconception of what CPR can, and can’t, do. CPR can sometimes save lives, but it also has a dark side…. The allure of CPR is that “death, instead of a final and irrevocable passage, becomes a process manipulable by humans,” writes Stefan Timmermans, a sociologist who has studied CPR…. “It seems too good to be true,” he said, and it is. Click through for details. I won’t try to address every possible complication here – but this highlights the importance of Living Wills/DNR orders – and maybe even more the importance of respecting them.
Robert Reich – Should we be worried about RFK Jr.?
Quote – Were it not for his illustrious name, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would be just another crackpot in the growing number of bottom-feeding right-wing fringe politicians seeking high office. But the Robert F. Kennedy brand is political gold. RFK Jr. is now polling in the double digits against Biden. The latest CNN poll, taken less than three weeks ago, has him at 20 percent. Click through for article. As always, click “keep reading” or whatever on the popup. His father would be APPALLED.
The New Yorker – The Legal Dynamics of Trump’s Second Indictment
Quote – Q – What are the considerations when the government approaches cases involving classified documents? A – There are a slew of them. From the government’s perspective, the crux of the matter is how much classified information they are willing to reveal, because the defendant has a constitutional right to confront the evidence against him. This means that the government cannot split the difference; it can’t convict someone based on evidence they are not allowed to see. So oftentimes how the government charges a case like this and how they try a case like this reflect decisions about what they are and aren’t willing to disclose. Click through for full interview. The writer is not a lawyer, but the interviewee is, and is an expert on national-security law. I’ve already used the New Yorker once this month, so if you are paywalled out, email me and I’ll send it by return.
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
We all need to eat – and unless you grow everything you eat (which I certainly don’t – I haven’t even been able, over the longhaul, to grow all my own chives) you depend on farmers (using the term to include ranchers.) In addition to eating, I also have food allergies, including to the two top cash crops we grow here – corn and soy – so I have a more than passing interest n the farm bill – at least in theory. But since we started in the 1930’s passing multi-year farm bills, those bills have become so unwieldy that I strongly suspect that no one actually kows what is in them – not down to the last detail. But Director Merrigan, who wrote this article does know more than most people – including a good chunk of Congress.
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These four challenges will shape the next farm bill – and how the US eats
For the 20th time since 1933, Congress is writing a multiyear farm bill that will shape what kind of food U.S. farmers grow, how they raise it and how it gets to consumers. These measures are large, complex and expensive: The next farm bill is projected to cost taxpayers US$1.5 trillion over 10 years.
Modern farm bills address many things besides food, from rural broadband access to biofuels and even help for small towns to buy police cars. These measures bring out a dizzying range of interest groups with diverse agendas.
As a former Senate aide and senior official at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, I’ve seen this intricate process from all sides. In my view, with the challenges in this round so complex and with critical 2024 elections looming, it could take Congress until 2025 to craft and enact a bill. Here are four key issues shaping the next farm bill, and through it, the future of the U.S. food system.
These measures follow unprecedented spending for farm support during the Trump administration. Now legislators are jockeying over raising the debt ceiling, which limits how much the federal government can borrow to pay its bills.
Agriculture Committee leaders and farm groups argue that more money is necessary to strengthen the food and farm sector. If they have their way, the price tag for the next farm bill would increase significantly from current projections.
On the other side, reformers argue for capping payments to farmers, which The Washington Post recently described as an “expensive agricultural safety net,” and restricting payment eligibility. In their view, too much money goes to very large farms that produce commodity crops like wheat, corn, soybeans and rice, while small and medium-size producers receive far less support.
Food aid is the key fight
Many people are surprised to learn that nutrition assistance – mainly through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps – is where most farm bill money is spent. Back in the 1970s, Congress began including nutrition assistance in the farm bill to secure votes from an increasingly urban nation.
Today, over 42 million Americans depend on SNAP, including nearly 1 in every 4 children. Along with a few smaller programs, SNAP will likely consume 80% of the money in the new farm bill, up from 76% in 2018.
Why have SNAP costs grown? During the pandemic, SNAP benefits were increased on an emergency basis, but that temporary arrangement expired in March 2023. Also, in response to a directive included in the 2018 farm bill, the Department of Agriculture recalculated what it takes to afford a healthy diet, known as the Thrifty Food Plan, and determined that it required an additional $12-$16 per month per recipient, or 40 cents per meal.
Because it’s such a large target, SNAP is where much of the budget battle will play out. Most Republicans typically seek to rein in SNAP; most Democrats usually support expanding it.
Anti-hunger advocates are lobbying to make the increased pandemic benefits permanent and defend the revised Thrifty Food Plan. In contrast, Republicans are calling for SNAP reductions, and are particularly focused on expanding work requirements for recipients.
Debating climate solutions
The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act provided $19.5 billion to the Department of Agriculture for programs that address climate change. Environmentalists and farmers alike applauded this investment, which is intended to help the agriculture sector embrace climate-smart farming practices and move toward markets that reward carbon sequestration and other ecosystem services.
This big pot of money has become a prime target for members of Congress who are looking for more farm bill funding. On the other side, conservation advocates, sustainable farmers and progressive businesses oppose diverting climate funds for other purposes.
But without more research and standards, observers worry that investments in climate-smart agriculture will support greenwashing – misleading claims about environmental benefits – rather than a fundamentally different system of production. Mixed research results have raised questions as to whether establishing carbon markets based on such practices is premature.
A complex bill and inexperienced legislators
Understanding farm bills requires highly specialized knowledge about issues ranging from crop insurance to nutrition to forestry. Nearly one-third of current members of Congress were first elected after the 2018 farm bill was enacted, so this is their first farm bill cycle.
I expect that, as often occurs in Congress, new members will follow more senior legislators’ cues and go along with traditional decision making. This will make it easier for entrenched interests, like the American Farm Bureau Federation and major commodity groups, to maintain support for Title I programs, which provide revenue support for major commodity crops like corn, wheat and soybeans. These programs are complex, cost billions of dollars and go mainly to large-scale operations.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s current stump speech spotlights the fact that 89% of U.S. farmers failed to make a livable profit in 2022, even though total farm income set a record at $162 billion. Vilsack asserts that less-profitable operations should be the focus of this farm bill – but when pressed, he appears unwilling to concede that support for large-scale operations should be changed in any way.
When I served as deputy secretary of agriculture from 2009 to 2011, I oversaw the department’s budget process and learned that investing in one thing often requires defunding another. My dream farm bill would invest in three priorities: organic agriculture as a climate solution; infrastructure to support vibrant local and regional markets and shift away from an agricultural economy dependent on exporting low-value crops; and agricultural science and technology research aimed at reducing labor and chemical inputs and providing new solutions for sustainable livestock production.
In my view, it is time for tough policy choices, and it won’t be possible to fund everything. Congress’ response will show whether it supports business as usual in agriculture, or a more diverse and sustainable U.S. farm system.
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AMT, if Merrigan is correct and we are not able to pass a farm bill before 2025 (and she makes a solid case), and if we do not gain the House, increase our lead in the Senate, and hold the White House, that bill is likely to be a disaster. And, in one way or another, every American will be affected. And I don’t have any answers. My best suggestion is for you to help us get people elected to Congress who are both caring and intelligent. And help get them elected in sufficient quantity that the anarchist Republicans (I use the term loosely – I know it does have a meaning that doesn’t fit them) will not be able to ruin it. A daunting task indeed.
Glenn Kirschner – DA Bragg withdraws appeal; Pomerantz to testify about Trump probe; will expose Jim Jordan’s game (I may well be wrong, but I think I see a hint of “Don’t throw me in that briar patch!” here on Bragg’s part.)
Robert Reich – Is the Republican Party Becoming the American Fascist Party?
Ojeda Live – Richard Ojeda Fights for Working Families
Armageddon Update – Harlan & Clarence Bromance
Cat Is Obsessed With His Tiny Love Bird
Beau – Let’s talk about delays and developments in Georgia….